DESCRIPTION (Applicant's Description) The proposed meeting, entitled "Nucleic Acid Enzymes: Structures, Mechanisms and Novel Applications", will focus on the structures, mechanisms, biological roles, and medical relevance of enzymes that act on DNA and RNA. The meeting aims to attract a broad, cross-disciplinary group of scientists with expertise in structural biology, biochemistry, and cell biology. This meeting will be the fourth sponsored by the Federation of American Societies of Experimental Biology (FASEB) in the areas of nucleic enzymology; the most recent in this series was held in 1998. The explosive pace of discovery of new enzymes that act on nucleic acids, the wealth of mechanistic information emerging from high resolution structural analysis, the central role of DNA and RNA enzymology in biotechnology, and the growing list of human diseases that entail derangements of nucleic acid transactions are factors that make this 2000 meeting extremely timely and topical. The Scientific Program will consist of nine sessions of oral presentations by distinguished invited speakers in the following subject areas: 1) DNA repair enzymes; 2) DNA and RNA polymerases; 3) Transposition and recombination; 4) DNA and RNA modification enzymes; 5) Helicases and nucleic acid-dependent NTPases; 6) RNA and DNA catalysts; 7) Cleavage and degradative enzymes; 8) New applications for nucleic acid enzymes and new insights from genomics into the evolution of enzyme systems; 9) Diseases related to nucleic acids enzymology. The organizers have recruited leading investigators to serve as Discussion leaders for these sessions. The Program will also include daily poster sessions. All attendees will be encouraged to present posters on their research. To encourage career development of junior scientists, six outstanding posters from the ranks of graduate students and post-doc attendees will be selected for oral presentations. The FASEB 2000 meeting aims to highlight the parallels and differences between enzymes involved in DNA metabolism and those of the RNA world. Hence, the program has been configured so that most sessions will include talks on both RNA and DNA transactions. The intimate format of the conference is designed to promote free exchange of information and ideas among researchers who work on RNA and DNA enzymes - thereby expediting research in both fields.